Abstract

Masaniello’s swift decline begins. When someone complains toMasaniello that salt is selling, per weight, at not six but sevencarlini, he intervenes. He discovers that, at theexpense of the poor, the new Eletto del Popolo isfailing to assure the official prices on foodstuffs, which he has fixed.The chapter traces from the published and unpublished sources eventsboth at the palace and then up the coast at Posillipo. Masaniellobecomes less lucid; he begins to act erratically, lashing out againsthis own young followers. Why does this happen?

Keywords: trial, Posillipo, wine, poison, madness

He gave orders, under pain of death, that everyone must reveal where theowners of the burnt houses had stored their goods and money. As aresult, having had many tip-offs, he collected goods without number,even from the very churches and from the convents of men and women.Having learned that, that Sunday morning, four banished men had takenrefuge inside the Carminello church of the Jesuit fathers, he sent agreat crowd to surround the church and cloister. As the doors were wellshut, the besiegers pressed on with a number of pickaxes, until,piercing the wall, they entered and caught one, and swiftly cut off hishead, as they then did to the three others.